Yucatec Maya: Variation in Space and Time

语言变异对于我们理解语言使用中的动态过程至关重要。在时间、地理或社会空间等不同维度上的变化反映了一个言语社区不同的交际实践。不同的语言属性是语言变化的根源，而它们之间的依存关系有助于我们理解语言结构。本项目的目的是研究墨西哥本土语言尤卡特克·玛雅语的变异，重点关注语言的空间分散性和语言使用的当前发展。随着数据库、地图集、计算工具和理论模型的建立，对英语、瑞典语或德语等研究较好的语言的变异研究取得了相当大的进展。对尤卡特克玛雅人这样的语言进行大规模研究，有望在两个方面对变异的理解做出重大贡献：(A)它将提供关于一种语言主要用于口头交际时产生的变异程度的洞察力；(B)它将有助于我们理解现代社会(特别是城市化和普遍的双语)中的转型过程对土著语言状况的影响。该项目将编制一份大规模的数据收集，收集目前讲尤卡特克语的玛雅人在农村和城市聚落中的词汇和语法特征样本。它将识别方言变体，它将创建一份详细的地图集，并将得出关于方言变体在地理空间中的存在和分散的结论。农村和城市住区之间的比较将提供关于时间轴上的发展的洞察力，例如最近在城市中心创建区域中心和/或普遍双语的影响。使用目前的方言计量学方法将能够准确地估计变体之间的关系。为了了解变异的根源，该项目将调查选定的语音、语音和句法现象中的变体之间的关系。计划中的研究致力于尤卡特克玛雅的核心特性，这些特性是目前研究的重点。在语音/音系学层面上，我们将研究物化词、词汇声调的实现变化，以及韵律域与韵律词对齐的情况。在句法方面，我们将研究基本的语序模式和论元焦点结构。这些研究有望揭示决定观察到的变异的语言结构。这一议程有望通过结合社会语言学、方言计量学、语音和句法微观变异研究等几个研究范式的知识，为当前的变异研究做出贡献。

Linguistic variation is crucial for our understanding of the dynamic processes that manifest themselves in language use. The development of varieties along different dimensions such as time, geographical or social space reflects different communicative practices of a speech community. Varying linguistic properties are the source of language change while dependencies between them contribute to our understanding of linguistic structures.The aim of this project is to study variation in the indigenous Mexican language Yucatec Maya with a focus on the spatial dispersion of the language and the current developments in language use. The investigation of variation in well-studied languages such as English, Swedish or German has considerably advanced with the creation of databases, atlases and computational tools and theoretical models. A large-scale study on a language such as Yucatec Maya promises a significant contribution to the understanding of variation in two respects: (a) it will offer insights about the amount of variation that arises if a language is mainly used in oral communication; (b) it will contribute to our understanding of the impact of the transformational processes in modern societies (especially urbanization and generalized bilingualism) on the situation of indigenous languages.This project will compile a large-scale data collection of a sample of lexical and grammatical features in a sample of rural and urban settlements of currently spoken Yucatec Maya. It will identify dialectal variants, it will create a detailed atlas, and will draw conclusions about the existence and dispersion of varieties in geographical space. The comparison between rural and urban settlements will offer insights about developments in the time axis, such as the recent creation of regiolects in urban centers and/or the impact of generalized bilingualism. The use of current dialectometric methods will allow for precise estimations of the relations between varieties.In order to understand the roots of variation, the project will investigate the relations between variants in selected phonetic, phonological and syntactic phenomena. The planned studies are devoted to core properties of Yucatec Maya that are in the focus of the current research. At the phonetics/phonology level, we will study the variation in the realization of ejectives, lexical tones, as well as the alignment of enclitics with prosodic domains. In syntax, we will investigate basic word order patterns and argument-focus constructions. These studies are expected to shed light on the linguistic structures that determine the observed variation.This agenda is expected to make a contribution to the current research on variation by combining knowledge from several research paradigms, including sociolinguistics, dialectometry, studies on micro-variation in phonology and syntax.